vita (english)

Charismatic stage presence united with an overwhelming joy of playing: Heike Matthiesen is a unparalleled exception in today’s guitar world with intelligent programs which always fascinate her audience. The press writes about her, using superlatives like: “guitar music to bow down to”, “world class”, “wonderful”.
Last year, her CD “Guitar Ladies” was released with works exclusively featuring female composers. Several world premier recordings on the CD also included pieces dedicated to Heike Matthiesen. In addition, she opened the symphony concert season of the Regensburg Symphony Orchestra with the Concierto de Aranjuez and was featured in a recital in the Altmark Festival.
Among the special artistic highlights of the last few years were appearances in the Gewandhaus Leipzig and as part of the Salzburg Festival.
Concerts as a soloist and chamber musician found Heike Matthiesen appearing throughout the whole of Europe as well as in countries like China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Japan, Equatorial Guinea and the USA. Repeatedly, she has been a featured guest in worldwide guitar festivals.
Heike Matthiesen’s artistic development has been unique in the classical music scene: As the eldest daughter in an opera family, she had received piano lessons in her earliest childhood, changing to the guitar when she was 18. After only one year, she began her studies at the Frankfurt College of Music and Dramatic Arts. Two years later she started to play with the Frankfurt Opera’s orchestra, during which time she developed into a sought-after chamber musician. She is particularly proud of her long-standing association with the Villa Musica Mainz. After receiving her artist diploma, she became a master-class pupil of Pepe Romero. It was he who enabled her to become a world class soloist.
The 4 CDs which she has released highlight the scope of her musical range. The in-depth study she invested in researching her last CD “Guitar Ladies”, led Heike Matthiesen to become increasingly involved, in an honorary capacity, in the Woman and Music Archive in Frankfurt: the largest collection of works of female composers in the world.
This remarkable musician represents the new breed of artist: communicative, multi-lingual, and internet-oriented (her videos on Youtube have been clicked more than 2,000,000 times) and she establishes on her social media channels in Facebook and Instagram a direct contact with her devoted audience. She thus creates for herself an additional platform to continue to act as an Ambassadress for Classical Music and the Guitar.